to find it hilarious that my daughter is ranked lowest in class for her accent by her language tutor?

[WestieMamma]

She is outraged. I can't stop laughing. She's just started training to be an English teacher here in Sweden. Her tutor says she has the worst, least authentic accent in the class, despite being one of the only native English speakers .

The top ranked is the other native speaker. He's a geordie. Apparently the fact that none of the Swedes can understand a word he says doesn't matter, it's the fact that he's consistent .

I like the idea, Toys!

I do know British people who claim to be unable to understand other regional UK accents. I don't think it's just forriners who have trouble with it, it's sometimes people who CBA to listen, and sometimes people who can't cope with another accent at speed.

I have no problem coping with a broad Glaswegian accent, for e.g. - but plenty of my southern softie London friends reckon they can't understand it!

Oops, should have read lljkk's post more closely before posting mine! Not heard of APD but I guess that might be what I was describing...

Tehee, Thumb! Where shall we go?

I was very bad with my Chinese flatmate who had a tendency for talking in a Waybuloo kind of way.

I felt really bad when I was working with youngsters and one of them (who I only talked to very occasionally) had a broad Glaswegian accent- I just could bot understand anything he was saying, however hard I tried. He wasn't in my group, luckily, because I was slightly terrified that he'd ask me something and then get annoyed because I asked him to repeat himself 20 times..

I'm in a real melting pot of a city with a larger than usual proportion of English in Scotland. You tend to hear a range of accents, which are all fairly mild, so you never get to practice understanding the broad ones.